Arsenal might have ended their 22-year championship drought — but not because they suddenly became worse. According to a fun new analysis by BBC Sport and Opta, the Gunners could have won the title under almost any metric you care to name, which raises a delightful question: is there any measure by which Arsenal wouldn't have been champions? The answer, it turns out, is very few.
The analysis crunched the numbers from the 2025-26 Premier League season to present alternative league tables — not because the real standings are wrong, but because they reveal something about which teams genuinely dominated and which got lucky. "Points win prizes and that's why the real league table is the only one that matters," BBC Sport acknowledged. But expected points (xPTS) offer a window into which teams over-performed or under-performed based on the quality of chances they created and conceded.
The numbers threw up some striking surprises. Sunderland would have been relegated under the expected-points model — a sign they may have been fortunate rather than genuinely safe. Aston Villa, meanwhile, would have finished in the bottom half, while Chelsea would have qualified for the Champions League on xPTS. Tottenham, that most inconsistent of clubs, earned enough points on their travels to qualify for the Europa League if only away matches counted. Everton and Nottingham Forest, perhaps surprisingly given their famously vocal fanbases, were also markedly better on the road than at home. Fulham, by contrast, had the greatest home-to-away gap of any side in the league — their Craven Cottage fortress serving them well.
Set-pieces defined much of the season, with specialist coaches becoming minor celebrities on Premier League touchlines. Arsenal were among the best in the league at converting them, one of several factors that made them worthy champions. Whether other clubs spend the summer trying to master the set-piece meta — buying free-kick takers and towering headers — remains to be seen.
For fans of data and debate, the real test will come next season. If Sunderland tumble toward relegation and Villa struggle, it will suggest expected metrics have genuine predictive power. If they recover, maybe "xG" is still just "a heap of hogwash." Either way, football's beautiful unpredictability marches on.